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I Put a Spell On You · Six Degrees of Dylan - Audio Episodes

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Colin McGady and I have a theory.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone changed what a popular song could be and every rock
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: and pop song since can be connected back to it.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is a journey through musical evolution, following the influences,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: shared ideas and unexpected encounters that connect one record to another.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Six songs, five connections, one destination.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Six Degrees of Dylan.
• 0:26
  [music]
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Before we begin, a quick listening note.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: For licensing reasons, the songs themselves aren't included in this episode.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: You'll find today's Spotify playlist linked in the post notes.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'll let you know when to pause and listen,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: and point you towards particular moments in each song.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Take your time, then come back when you're ready to follow the next connection.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy! Tonight, we begin with a voice trying to take possession of the room.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Screamin' Jay Hawkins' original 1956 recording of I Put A Spell On You makes
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: a love song feel like a piece of theatre.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Our six songs follow what happens when a singer treats a composition as a dramatic space.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nina Simone changes the temperature of Hawkins' song.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Her repertoire opens a door to Jacques Brel.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Brel leads to David Bowie and Scott Walker, then we finish with Dylan.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Some of these are documented relationships.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: The last is a comparison I am making as a listener.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: First, notice how Hawkins moves between a sung phrase, a growl,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: and a sudden vocal eruption while the band holds its ground.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for the short original OK recording of I Put A Spell On You, then come back.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Nina Simone keeps the composition and changes its center of gravity.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Her 1965 album notes say she had heard Hawkins' recording and chose a ballad setting
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: for her own interpretation.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: The result can sound poised and deeply unsettled at once.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to how she lengthens a phrase, lets the accompaniment wait,
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: and then releases the pressure in her voice.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: We do not need to decide which version is definitive to hear the power of the difference.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: The next connection sits on the same Phillips album.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Simone also recorded Jacques Brel's Ne Me Quitte Pas.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: We will move from her title track to Brel's own original performance of that other song.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Nina Simone's I Put A Spell On You and return when you are ready.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Brel makes the plea feel close enough to be uncomfortable.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ne Me Quitte Pas was recorded in 1959 and we are hearing that original performance,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: not his later remake.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the returning title phrase, the hesitations around it,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: and the way the voice seems to negotiate with its own dignity.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: The point is not simply that the singer sounds emotional.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: The performance gives that emotion a changing, dramatic shape.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Brel also wrote Amsterdam, which David Bowie recorded in an English adaptation by Mort Schumann.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two different songs by the same writer, opening different rooms.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: An intimate appeal, then a crowded seaport scene.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Jacques Brel's Ne Me Quitte Pas and come back for the change of scale.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Bowie's Amsterdam brings the storyteller into the crowd.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is the studio performance released on the other side of Sorrow in 1973,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: selected here in its 2015 remaster.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to how the acoustic accompaniment supports an accumulating vocal intensity.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: The setting grows through the singer's delivery rather than through a succession
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: of unrelated scenes.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Our next link is in Bowie's own account of Discovery.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: He described Scott Walker as an idol and recalled
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: that Walker's recordings helped lead him towards Brel.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: That gives us a documented artistic relationship.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: It does not make our next song the proven source of Bowie's Amsterdam.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for David Bowie's Amsterdam, then return to hear what Walker made from his own writing.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: The Seventh Seal opens Scott IV, released in 1969 under Walker's birth surname, Engel.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: The album consists entirely of his own compositions.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: This song takes its starting point from Ingmar Bergman's film
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: about a medieval knight confronting death.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Peter Knight's accompaniment and John Franz's production surround the narrative
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: with a broad, cinematic scale.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the forward movement of the arrangement,
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: and to how Walker's controlled baritone carries the story through it.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: We are following Bowie's admiration into Walker's original work,
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: rather than pretending this is another Braille cover.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: From here, the bridge to Dylan is my listening comparison.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Ambitious storytelling and a recurring musical frame that can hold a disturbing encounter.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Scott Walker's The Seventh Seal and come back.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone changes the kind of encounter.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: Walker tells a cinematic parable.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Dylan addresses a person whose old protections have fallen away.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: One voice narrates a journey towards mortality.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: The other returns to a question about what it feels like to lose your place.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I am not claiming a direct influence between these two recordings.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I hear two different ways of giving popular song a dramatic scale
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: beyond a conventional declaration of love.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Tom Wilson produced Dylan's original 1965 performance.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to the opening drum strike, the lift of the organ,
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: and the way the recurring refrain gathers pressure as the verses continue.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Pause for Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone, then come back for a final thought.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: We began with a spell, but the root has been about interpretation.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hawkins turns a voice into a theatrical event.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: Simone finds a different emotional centre in the same composition.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Brel builds a scene from a plea.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Bowie makes a seaport rise around an acoustic guitar.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: Walker brings cinema into his own songwriting.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Dylan leaves us with a dramatic address that keeps changing as we hear it.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: The connections help us travel, but each performance keeps its own mystery.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Colin McGaddy.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to Six Degrees of Dylan.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time.
• 6:26
  [music]